Book description
With an essay by Alathea Hayter.
'My hour is come ... the clock of eternity is about to strike,
but its knell must be unheard by mortal ears!'
This violent, profound, baroque and blackly humorous novel is the
story of Melmoth, who has sold his soul in exchange for immortality in
a satanic bargain, and now preys on the helpless in their darkest
moments, offering to ease their suffering if they will take his place
and release him from his centuries of tortured wanderings. Melmoth
the Wanderer (1820) blended Gothic fiction and psychological
realism to create a work of hallucinatory power.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in
English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the
beginning of the First World War.
Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824) was born in Dublin and educated at
Trinity College, going on to become a clergyman and writer of Gothic
novels and plays. At first a failure, his work was nonetheless noticed
by Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, which led to the staging and success
of his tragedy
Bertram
. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on the other hand, dismissed it as
'melancholy proof of the depravation of the public mind'.) His later
plays and fiction, including
Melmoth the Wanderer
, were neglected and Maturin died in poverty. The work's brilliance was
recognised posthumously, and it now endures as one of the most famous
gothic novels in English literature.
